American Philosophy Schedule
Philosophy 303
Winter/Spring 2012
Week One:
IntroductionRecitation:
Week Two:
Topic One: The PuritansRead:
American Exceptionalism:
Winthrop's sermon sets in motion a notion that is referred to as "American exceptionalism." This can come in weaker and stronger versions:
- Weaker version: America's origins, history, experiences, and ideals set America apart as unique among the nations of the world
- Stronger version: Not only is America unique, but we are also the greatest nation on earth; we enjoy a superiority over other nations due to our unique character, even if that also saddles us with unique responsibilities to the world
In later American history, this exceptionalism takes a variety of forms, both religious and secular, in some instances referring back to the "city on a hill" language: the rhetoric around the Revolution, the notion of Manifest Destiny, the superiority of our economic system, our responsibility to make the world "safe for democracy," and so on.
Two recent articles take up this theme of exceptionalism in relation to current trends:
This is a review commentary on Sarah Palin's recent book, America by Heart: Reflections on Family, Faith, and Flag. It intersects with some of the themes we see in Winthrop about America having a special destiny, serving as "city on a hill," and the like. Fish is a literary theorist and is a professor of humanities and law at Florida International University in Miami.
This is a somewhat tongue-in-cheek essay criticizing the very notion of national exceptionalism, especially the variety that paints any one particular nation as "the greatest nation on earth" (his Bhutan example is designed not so much as a serious suggestion as it is to demonstrate the absurdity of the exceptionalist idea). Hart is an independent scholar, but has taught in the past at University of Virginia, Duke, and Providence College.
January 25:
Read:
Covenant Theology: Faith, Works & Antinomianism:
Anne Hutchinson came to prominence near the beginning of what would become a large controversy about "antinomianism," both in America and back in England. Antinomianism has to do with how we understand "the covenant of grace," which, according to mainstream Puritan teaching, is the way God grants salvation. To understand this we need some background:
- God requires perfect and perpetual obedience from us as the condition for our ultimate enjoyment of God and eternal reward.
- Ever since Adam's first disobedience, however, human beings have fallen short of perfect obedience to God and this results in death and punishment.
- God comes to us as a human being in the person of Jesus, who both:
- [a] fulfills the perfect and perpetual obedience God requires and
[b] undergoes the death and punishment that our disobedience deserves. - Since Jesus both obeyed in our place and died in our place, God can freely and graciously offer salvation to us.
- All we need to be saved is to receive and rest upon Jesus Christ by faith.
So far, so good. But no Puritan wanted to say that those who have faith can just go on living in disobedience. But what exactly is the relationship of good works to faith?
Neonomianism: At the one end of spectrum, some Puritans seemed to say that God required us to fulfill the condition of faith in order to be saved and faith is an act of obedience, even if God himself is at work in us to give us the gift of faith. Furthermore, the faith that saves is a faith that produces good works, so that good works are signs and evidence of faith and salvation. Someone who wants to be saved should, therefore, strive toward repentance and faith, and our good works can provide us assurance that we are saved.
Antinomianism: At the other end of the spectrum, some Puritans seemed to say that faith is utterly passive and receptive and thus should not be thought of as any sort of obedience. Furthermore, good works are no solid evidence that a person has been saved. The work of God is internal, directly upon the soul and there is nothing we can do to prepare for it, and those who have experienced it can be assured of God's salvation apart from any good works.
Those Puritans nearer the neonomian end of the spectrum accused those who downplayed good works of being "antinomian" and were suspicious of their talk about internal works of God upon the soul, as if such folks had a direct connection to God apart from church leaders or the wider community of faith, preaching, and sacraments. Those nearer the antinomian end of the spectrum accused those who emphasized good works of being legalists, of offering a new covenant of works, and of relying too much upon ourward signs of grace.
Recitation:
Questions on Winthrop:
Questions on Hutchinson:
Questions on Hutchinson:
Week Three:
Topic One (continued): The PuritansRead:
Liberty of Conscience:
The dispute that swirled around Roger Williams had to do, in part, with the notion of "freedom of conscience." Both Williams and those opposed to him believed in some notion of "liberty of conscience," but they disagreed about what exactly that meant.
Around the same time as Roger Williams's Bloudy Tenent a group of Puritan ministers in England (under orders from Parliament) produced a document called The Westminster Confession of Faith. This confession included some teaching on liberty of conscience that would have represented something close to the view of those Puritans who opposed Williams. Here are the relevant excerpts (emphasis added):
- CHAPTER 20
Of Christian Liberty, and Liberty of Conscience
2. God alone is Lord of the conscience, and hath left it free from the doctrines and commandments of men, which are, in anything, contrary to his Word; or beside it, if matters of faith, or worship. So that, to believe such doctrines, or to obey such commands, out of conscience, is to betray true liberty of conscience: and the requiring of an implicit faith, and an absolute and blind obedience, is to destroy liberty of conscience, and reason also.
3. They who, upon pretense of Christian liberty, do practice any sin, or cherish any lust, do thereby destroy the end of Christian liberty, which is, that being delivered out of the hands of our enemies, we might serve the Lord without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life.
4. And because the powers which God hath ordained, and the liberty which Christ hath purchased, are not intended by God to destroy, but mutually to uphold and preserve one another, they who, upon pretense of Christian liberty, shall oppose any lawful power, or the lawful exercise of it, whether it be civil or ecclesiastical, resist the ordinance of God. And, for their publishing of such opinions, or maintaining of such practices, as are contrary to the light of nature, or to the known principles of Christianity (whether concerning faith, worship, or conversation), or to the power of godliness; or, such erroneous opinions or practices, as either in their own nature, or in the manner of publishing or maintaining them, are destructive to the external peace and order which Christ hath established in the church, they may lawfully be called to account, and proceeded against, by the censures of the church.
- CHAPTER 31
Of Synods and Councils
2. It belongeth to synods and councils, ministerially to determine controversies of faith, and cases of conscience; to set down rules and directions for the better ordering of the public worship of God, and government of his church; to receive complaints in cases of maladministration, and authoritatively to determine the same: which decrees and determinations, if consonant to the Word of God, are to be received with reverence and submission; not only for their agreement with the Word, but also for the power whereby they are made, as being an ordinance of God appointed thereunto in his Word.
As you can see, the document tries to walk a thin line between liberty and order (see sections emphasized above). While Williams would likely agree with Chapter 20.2 of the Westminster Confession, it is likely that he might differ from some of the other assertions.
February 1:
Read:
On Doing Good:
The reading in our text from Mather's Bonifacius is only a brief excerpt from a much longer text. Indeed the title of the book itself is much longer. Here's the full title:
AN ESSAY
Upon the GOOD, that is to be
Devised and Designed
by those
Who Desire to Answer the Great END
of Life, and to DO GOOD
While they Live.
A BOOK Offered
First, in General, unto all CHRISTIANS,
in a PERSONAL Capacity, or in
a RELATIVE.
Then more Particularly,
Unto MAGISTRATES, unto MINISTERS,
unto PHYSICIANS, unto LAWYERS,
unto SCHOLEMASTERS, unto Wealthy
GENTLEMEN, unto CHURCHES, and
unto all SOCIETIES of a Religious
Character and Intention. With Humble
PROPOSALS, of Unexceptionable
METHODS, to Do Good in the World.
If you are interested in reading more of Mather (but still not the whole treatise) there is a longer excerpt available online (at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government) that includes more specific details of Mather's practical suggestions for doing good individually and in association. It overlaps with the reading in our text and includes an informative introduction:
Recitation:
Questions on Williams:
Questions on Mather:
Week Four:
Topic Two: Republican EnlightenmentRead:
February 8:
Read:
What About Monarchy?:
Thomas Paine provides a critique of the British system of constitutional monarchy, arguing that it fails to accomplish the kind of balance of power among King, Lords, and Parliament that it purports to offer. Moreover, he is a ferocious critic of monarchy in all forms, arguing for an American system where the president of the national legislative assembly serves only for year, only while the legislature is meeting, and who is chosen from a different, randomly selected state each time. Such a president would be nothing like a monarch.
Advocates of the British system of government obviously would disagree with Paine (as would advocates of the other European monarchies, of which there are still a dozen or so). Recently, Phillip Blond provided a defense of the British monarchy on the BBC. The audio is no longer available, but there is a print version of his remarks:
Blond argues that monarchy is actually necessary in order to guarantee democracy, because only something like monarchy sustains principles and goods that transcend the interests of temporary, manipulated democratic majorities. Blond's essay is also an intriguing example of what we might call "British exceptionalism" - extolling the uniqueness and superiority of the British system of government. Blond is a British political thinker and theologian, the author of Red Tory: How the Left and Right Have Broken Britain and How We Can Fix It, and director of the think tank ResPublica.
Recitation:
Questions on Franklin:
Questions on Paine:
Week Five:
Topic Two (continued): Republican EnlightenmentRead:
Resistance to Tyranny:
In western political philosophy there has been a long conversation about resistance to tyranny, grounded in both ancient Roman political thought and in the Jewish and Christian scriptures. There are several questions involved here:
[b] What recourse do people have in cases of tyranny?
[c] When is it permissible, if ever, to use deadly force against a tyrannical regime?
[d] Who is permitted to lead resistance or to initiate the use of force?
So, when political thinkers endorse some form of resistance to tyranny, they do so cautiously. For instance, Thomas Aquinas writes:
A tyrannical government is not just, because it is directed, not to the common good, but to the private good of the ruler... Consequently there is no sedition in disturbing a government of this kind, unless indeed the tyrant's rule be disturbed so inordinately, that his subjects suffer greater harm from the consequent disturbance than from the tyrant's government. (Summa Theologiae II-II.42.2)While Aquinas allows for the "disturbance" of a tyrannical regime, it is clear from his comments here and elsewhere that such disturbance is limited to disobedience, use of established procedures of impeachment, appeal to a higher authority, and the like. It does not include the possibility of armed revolt, especially in the form of a popular uprising.
At the time of the Protestant Reformation, and grounded in late medieval thinking on the topic, some thinkers began to allow for some limited forms of armed resistance to tyranny, so long as it is the only means available and so long as it is carried out under the appropriate authority of civil rulers of some sort. This view appears in John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion and receives a more extended treatment in the work of a French Huguenot writing under the pseudonym "Lucius Junius Brutus":
Feburary 15:
Read:
The Articles of Confederation:
Until the ratification of the US Constitution, the United States were not a single, federated nation, but rather a confederation of sovereign states in "a firm league of friendship" under the Articles of Confederation. These articles had been drafted by the Second Continental Congress in 1776 and sent to the States, requiring unanimous ratification.
In large part, the Articles were a military alliance, assuring the common defense and security of the States, vesting a Confederation Congress with the power to declare war and to engage in foreign relation. The Articles also assured freedom of movement between the States and the right of extradition of fugitive criminals from one State to another. The Congress would also have power to settle disputes between the States.
Beyond these measures, the Articles gave little power to the Congress. Each State could send between 2 and 7 delegates to Congress, though each State only had one vote in Congress. Delegates only served one year terms and could not serve for more than 3 years within any 6 year period. The Congress would be presided over by a president, elected by the Congress, and serving only during the time that Congress met each year and only for one year in any 3 year period. All acts of Congress required a two-thirds majority (at least 9 votes out of 13). Obviously the powers of such a government were extremely limited.
These limits, however, proved problematic. States remained free to impose levies, and restrictions on trade with other States and could enter into economic agreements with foreign nations. Furthermore, the Articles left the Congress unfunded with no power to levy taxes, relying instead on voluntary contributions from State legislatures. This left Congress, practically speaking, unable to conduct foreign relations, to provide military protection in the interests of the States, or even to enforce the terms of the treaty with Britain at the end of the war. The lack of funding led to the printing of money, and the depreciation of the currency. Furthermore, States regularly violated the terms of the Articles and, given its limited powers, there was nothing Congress could do to enforce the Articles. The Articles also made it extremely difficult for any revision of the Articles to occur, requiring unanimous consent of all 13 States for amendments.
Given these strictures, the obvious need for revision, and the inability to get any revision off the ground, the Congress decided some kind of convention for the revision of the Articles was necessary.
Read:
Federalism, Anti-Federalism, and the US Constitution:
The idea of a meeting to revise the Articles of Confederation came to fruition with the Philadelphia Convention of 1787, but instead of revising the articles, the convention ended up writing an entirely new Constitution. The situation was precarious.
While each of the 13 States had been invited to send delegates to the Convention, only 12 of them appointed delegates, with Rhode Island abstaining. Moreover, out of the 74 delegates selected by 12 State legislatures, only 55 showed up to Philadelphia, and of those 55, only 39 were willing to sign the Constitution that resulted. And where the Articles had required the unanimous consent of all 13 States for any revision, the new Constitution only required 9 out of the 13 States for ratification.
The future of the Constitution was uncertain, to say the least.
In order to understand the proposed Constitution, as well as the debate between the Federalists and Anti-Federalists, it is useful to know some of the history of political philosophy, going back even to ancient sources such as Plato, Aristotle, Polybius, and Cicero, as well as the ancient mixed constitutions of Athens, Sparta, and Rome.
Recitation:
Questions on The Declaration:
Questions on Hamilton:
Questions on "Brutus":
Questions on Madison:
Week Six:
Topic Three: Protestant Awakening and Democratic OrderRead:
Supplement:
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February 22:
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Week Seven:
Topic Number: Topic DescriptionRead:
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Week Eight:
Week Nine:
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Week Ten:
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Week Eleven:
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Week Twelve:
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Week Thirteen:
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Week Fourteen:
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Week Fifteen:
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Week Sixteen:
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